The Blank Page

Welcome, dear reader, to my blog. That’s right, I have a blog now. Recently, I found myself suffering from blog envy and, as we all know, there’s only one cure for that. Get blogging. Whether anyone asked you to or not.

I can’t promise this is going to be a weekly thing. Or monthly. I guess that all depends on how well the writing is going and just how distracting the world beyond my keyboard becomes. I can’t promise it’ll be much more than me talking about myself either. There might be some book and film reviews of a sort in there. Or some hype and hope for the many talented people I’m lucky enough to know. Still, I’ll do my best to make this as interesting as I can and keep you posted on exactly where me and my brain are when it comes to co-existing on a daily basis and telling stories. I’ll try and make some good points along the way and be as open with you as I can. If I can do that, then I think we’re off to a good start.

Oh, Danny Boyle. The press, the press are calling. Yep, there’s no way that hasn’t already been written online at least a thousand times. To be honest, if I had his number, I’d be calling. Or maybe I’d be better calling the good folks at Eon Productions. Just to find out what happened. I want to know exactly why they parted ways with such an established and interesting director.

Before Fluff became available to buy. Before May Day appeared in Britain and mysteriously brought with it the one thing we British were never expecting, sun. Before I walked out of a cinema and declared Infinity War to be one of the best blockbuster experiences I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy, the universe taught me a valuable lesson.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to review Infinity War here. There is a near infinite number of people on the internet who are going to do that today. No, what I wanted to talk about was opening night. I love the opening night of a big movie. I truly do. The atmosphere. The anticipation. The reactions in the room, after the lights have gone down.

A few weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, we were flicking around and passed a rather intense looking programme. It was clearly a drama, being performed on a stage and in front of an audience. A well dressed, well behaved audience at that. I recognised a couple of faces in the cast and was relatively intrigued until I spotted a grave digger and heard the name Horatio. “Alas…” said the TV. “Oh, not again.” I said as I quickly hopped to another channel.

There are some people in the world of cinema whose name becomes synonymous with what they do. You can spot them quite easily. They normally get the word ‘esque’ stuck on the end of their name to tell you another director has tried to respectably rip them off. It’s a sign that their talent has sewn them into the fabric of the cultural landscape. Steven Spielberg is very much one of those people. Although, unlike so many other directors who share that honour with him, he’s transcend the need to be seen as connected to only one genre or style of film. When it comes to Tarantino, Hitchcock, Fellini, Lean or Kubrick, you know roughly where the movie is going to take you. Whereas Spielberg feels more of an iconoclast than the rest of them. Or, at the very least, he appears to have a few extra clubs in his bag.

I’ve always loved the cinema. It started with the first movie I ever went to see. My dad took me to the grand old, art deco Odeon that used to sit in central Leicester to watch the newly re-issued Jungle Book. It blew me away. The deep reaching perspective of Kipling’s jungle in the credits. The moody atmosphere that seemed to lurk in the opening few scenes and the sheer, wild delight that took its place until a certain tiger cornered a boy amongst dying trees, the flames spread and I was made to believe a heroic slob of a bear had died.

Okay, I want to talk about something in particular this week. Only, in order to do that, I need to make confession before we go any further. Are you ready? This isn’t going to be easy for me. Here goes nothing…

I only book a stay at The Overlook Hotel occasionally. Every visit always leaves me with a different souvenir. I go in with pieces of the mystery set firmly in my head, ready to help me decrypt what I’m seeing. The native American mythology. The reference to The Donner Party. The many, many other theories the truly mind-bending documentary Room 237 has implanted into my thinking. Regardless of those intentions, by the time I get to the end I’m always too unnerved to think past the overwhelming sense of escape.